Why Would God's Son Have To Be Tortured, Die And Be Resurrected?

[RipVanWinkle]

I was taught that the reason Jesus had to be tortured, die and rise again was to forgive humanity's sins, right? This was supposedly true because god cannot be in the presence of any evil, so humans had to be made pure to live with god in heaven. Forgiveness required sacrifice and to

forgive all of humanity god had to sacrifice his only son.who is without sin. 

 

Well this concept is pretty shoddy when you consider that god himself created evil. Why then can not he not be in its presence? Besides, isn't he omnipotent? There is nothing he supposedly can't do. Why could't he simply judge people based upon their fruits as Jesus said?

 

I sure you know all of this. But if god couldn't  have sinful humans in his presence, why couldn't he simply let us heathens die and be done with us? If he did that he avoids us evil beings contaminating him. Problem solved. So why would he send unforgiven souls to the everlasting lake of fire to be tortured for eternity? I know of nothing in the bible which says that god was under some obligation to do so which he could not avoid. I've never heard it contended that he was obligated to do so. With no such obligation somehow imposed upon him there is only one conclusion that can be drawn: God is the most malicious, cruel, vindictive concept that could ever have be conceived by man. For Xtianity to threaten people with that totally evil concept doubles its vileness. Is there any religion (other than Islam) that has included anything close to being that horrible in their religion? bill

[mymistake]

God is suppose to be omnipresent.  There is evil in this world right now so if God were omnipresent that means God can be in the presence of evil.  The whole story doesn't make sense.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

What I find interesting about this question is: why did humans want/need to invent such a malicious god?

[centauri]

I was taught that the reason Jesus had to be tortured, die and rise again was to forgive humanity's sins, right? This was supposedly true because god cannot be in the presence of any evil, so humans had to be made pure to live with god in heaven. Forgiveness required sacrifice and to

forgive all of humanity god had to sacrifice his only son.who is without sin. 

 

Well this concept is pretty shoddy when you consider that god himself created evil. Why then can not he not be in its presence? Besides, isn't he omnipotent? There is nothing he supposedly can't do. Why could't he simply judge people based upon their fruits as Jesus said?

 

 

Ironically, almost every one of these Christian talking points is contradicted by the Old Testament.

Since Satan is supposed to be evil (according to Christians) God not only had Satan in his presence (Book of Job), but made bets with him.

Jesus wasn't without sin.

Forgiveness didn't always require sacrifice.

In fact, animal sacrifices were for the "lowest" form of sin, which was unintentional.

Human sacrifices don't do squat and are illegal according to God's law.

[rach]

That is a really good question and I have no answer.  But the foundation of Christianity is sacrifice.  It's just apparently the way god wants it.  Which means god is a fucking scary kind of guy.  It is not a system where the good are rewarded and the evil are punished.  It is a system where the pure are punished on behalf of the impure.  Which is really warped and sadistic and works in favour of the guilty at the expense of the innocent.  And it's not just a death sacrifice, it's really not about death since the death by crucifixion is accomplished within a few hours.  It's more about the torture and the slow day to day sacrifice (Jesus is here for thirty some years before crucifixion) than about the actual dying.  So in god's mind, from what I figure, the torture of his son resulting in the tears and screams of the son, are like the tears and screams of the actual guilty people (as if they were being punished) but instead it's chanelling through Jesus.  It's like a lightening strike is headed for an evil man, but instead god redirects it and it hits a puppy dog.  Somehow the electrocution of the puppy relieves god of his wrath towards the evil man.  This is a system of morality that I do not understand.  The brutal sacrifices of the animals and then of Jesus (and letting the guilty people off the hook) it really left me unable to continue in the religion because that's just not how my morality works.  What disturbs me the most about the whole thing is that I grew up in a giant Christian community and I was the only one I know of who was deeply troubled by this warped sacrificial morality system.  I just thought, let the guilty be punished fairly, let the innocent live well.  But apparently that's not how god feels. 

[Margee]

What I find interesting about this question is: why did humans want/need to invent such a malicious god?

 

I think it was the perfect way to start controlling others. Fear was always the perfect way to control the world. It still does.

 

Just my thoughts this morning.

 

*hugs* to all......

[amateur]

In the same vein, when I was a teenager a group of us sat around one night talking about religion.  We had all been taught (to varying degrees) that the purpose of life, and especially in heaven, was to worship and praise god.

 

One of the teenagers pointed out, "If god just wants praise, why didn't he create praise instead of people?"

 

We couldn't work our way out of that one.

[StillLooking]

That is a really good question and I have no answer.  But the foundation of Christianity is sacrifice. 

 

This was exactly what I got too during my years in catholicism. Jesus god sacrificed for humans and human christians should sacrifice themselves for fellow humans. If the message is seen with positive angle to help human beings the result will be good, otherwise, we will get a screw up society.

[RogueScholar]

What I find interesting about this question is: why did humans want/need to invent such a malicious god?

I believe that there are good reasons to believe the Abrahamic god was or was derived from the concept of a war god back when multiple gods was all the rage. If you go back to Greek and Roman mythology and probably further, the gods were very human like. Petty, cruel, jealous and very flawed. I'm not an expert, but the world is a harsh place and it makes a certain amount of sense to think that "flawed" gods would be part of making such an apparently flawed existence.

 

However, there is a stark contrast between Eastern and Western theology. If you compare Eastern and Western religious philosophy, they are diametrically opposed in many ways. Of course, many of the Eastern cultures were very different from the Western cultures. Hence, all the more reason to believe the concept of god and gods is human derived.

 

Cultures are also very good at taking an old concept and "making it their own." For example, look at contemporary religions such as Mormonism.

 

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

This was supposedly true because god cannot be in the presence of any evil

⁶ Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.

⁷ And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

⁸ And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?  Job Chapter 1

 

It would appear that light doth have fellowship with darkness and that god, who commanded us to "shun the very appearance of evil, has no problem entertaining evil or even making a bet with evil.

 

The bible itself destroys most christian doctrines; this is a fine example.

 

*Text pulled from http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Job-Chapter-1/

[Blood]

Job totally destroys the Christian (mis)conception of The Satan, who is an angel of the Lord -- not Sathani-El, the enemy of El, as dumb Christians mistook him to be. 

 

Why would God's son have to be tortured? I think Hyam Maccoby had the best explanation in his important book, "The Sacred Executioner." The Christian theologians, who were not and could not be Jewish, thought that by conceiving of a myth in which The Messiah is killed by "The Jews," they could thereby justify and validate their own theology. The basic idea being that "the Jews" not only did not recognize The Messiah, but screwed up so badly that they actually killed The Messiah. This is mythical thinking, born out of an alien conception of Biblical prophecies and the concept of The Messiah. The death of Christ symbolized "the end of the law," meaning that Jewish exclusivity as chosen people and the sole intellectual authorities on the Bible was now ended. The mythology of the crucifixion grew from this desire; the crucifixion did not produce the desire. 

[RipVanWinkle]

"One of the teenagers pointed out, "If god just wants praise, why didn't he create praise instead of people?

We couldn't work our way out of that one. amateur."

 

It is so incredibly stupid. God, the "perfect" one needs/wants praise. So he sets up a system which requires his creatures to be perfect, which he knows is impossible. So they can't win. But god gives these creatures a way out so that they can be declared sinless and live forever. The way out is to ensure that god will receive praise using the worst blackmail scheme ever envisioned: The creatures who praise god by accepting the gift of the forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection  of god's own son and by loving god and god's son with all their hearts, minds, etc., will live forever. This way they can and will continue to praise god forever.

 

But those creatures who refuse to believe that the impossible occurred through the resurrection of god's son are deemed to refuse to praise god on his terms. God has no need for them whatsoever. So to the eternal lake of fire in hell they go forever. Bottom line: God's whole plan was completely selfish and for his own pleasure. The idea of sin was merely to place a label on folks who innocently didn't believe the impossible christian story        bill

[rach]

 

That is a really good question and I have no answer.  But the foundation of Christianity is sacrifice. 

 

This was exactly what I got too during my years in catholicism. Jesus god sacrificed for humans and human christians should sacrifice themselves for fellow humans. If the message is seen with positive angle to help human beings the result will be good, otherwise, we will get a screw up society.

 

There are two kinds of sacrifice promoted in the Bible.  One is the noble self-sacrifice which everyone can agree is an honorable act.  The other is the murderous sacrifice of someone else.   "Abraham slit your sons' throat.  If you do that for me I'll give you some goodies."  Obviously dishonorable, cowardly and barbaric.  The reason the bible is so morally confusing is that it promotes such a heterogeneous tossed salad of what is truly good and what is malicious. 

[Deidre]

When you process how absurd just attempting to believe that an immortal god would have a mortal "son," the rest of the story doesn't even come into play. How gullible I once was. :/

[Guest afireinside]

When you process how absurd just attempting to believe that an immortal god would have a mortal "son," the rest of the story doesn't even come into play. How gullible I once was. :/

I think I was so gullible because I saw myself as such a sinner therefore I clung to the concept of Jesus being punished in my place as my freedom from that guilt. The religion itself exacerbated the guilt and illuminated the righteousness of Jesus to a place where I depended on Jesus to appease my conscience and the cycle continued; guilt-forgiveness-guilt-forgiveness etc

 

Logical thinking was abandoned as I only focused on being made right viscariously through another. It seems stupid now but that was the path I took and it made sense at the time that God was so loving that he let me off because of human being who lived 2000 years ago in the Middle East. I was at a point where I swallowed the absurdity of it.

[Deidre]

 

When you process how absurd just attempting to believe that an immortal god would have a mortal "son," the rest of the story doesn't even come into play. How gullible I once was. :/

I think I was so gullible because I saw myself as such a sinner therefore I clung to the concept of Jesus being punished in my place as my freedom from that guilt. The religion itself exacerbated the guilt and illuminated the righteousness of Jesus to a place where I depended on Jesus to appease my conscience and the cycle continued; guilt-forgiveness-guilt-forgiveness etc

Logical thinking was abandoned as I only focused on being made right viscariously through another. It seems stupid now but that was the path I took and it made sense at the time that God was so loving that he let me off because of human being who lived 2000 years ago in the Middle East. I was at a point where I swallowed the absurdity of it.

Fear is a big factor in religion. We were taught to feel unworthy and I think about that now. If a god should exist, why must we all feel ashamed of ourselves? Lol

 

The absurdity is endless.

[xtify]

...

For Xtianity to threaten people with that totally evil concept doubles its vileness. Is there any religion (other than Islam) that has included anything close to being that horrible in their religion? bill

 

It's really the crux of the whole racket.  It makes it seem like humans owe a debt to jesus for being tortured and killed in their place.  Christianity claims it was the only way we could be reconciled with god, but it doesn't explain why.  Somehow, they twist this sacrifice into evidence for god's amazing love for humanity.  It truly is sick and horrible.  

[Blood]

When you process how absurd just attempting to believe that an immortal god would have a mortal "son," the rest of the story doesn't even come into play. How gullible I once was. :/

 

Yep. As Aristotle said, once one absurdity is allowed, then all the rest follow. If you admit that an invisible God can have a son (who is really an angel), then the sky's the limit on what the human imagination can shoehorn in under that. 

[Guest afireinside]

 

 

When you process how absurd just attempting to believe that an immortal god would have a mortal "son," the rest of the story doesn't even come into play. How gullible I once was. :/

Yep. As Aristotle said, once one absurdity is allowed, then all the rest follow. If you admit that an invisible God can have a son (who is really an angel), then the sky's the limit on what the human imagination can shoehorn in under that.

Yep-normal people do fucked up things when fucked up things become normal

[par4dcourse]

Gods a big Bond fan. It's based on a screenplay for a Bond Movie: Live and Kill and Let Die and Live Again. Title may be revised before production.

[RogueScholar]

 

God's reasoning is pretty legit when you put it that way...

 

Edit:

 

While the video is crude and humourous, it really does helpf to focus on the absurdity of this whole Jesus story. Imagine if you never knew about Christianity and was exposed to it the first time as an adult with a reasonable amount of life experience and no particular religious associations. The story may very well seem like what was displayed in the video. It's completely absurd, not to mention there really isn't any compelling evidence to actually believe any of it really occurred

[DrGuitar]

In the same vein, when I was a teenager a group of us sat around one night talking about religion.  We had all been taught (to varying degrees) that the purpose of life, and especially in heaven, was to worship and praise god.

 

One of the teenagers pointed out, "If god just wants praise, why didn't he create praise instead of people?"

 

We couldn't work our way out of that one.

well semantically, praise is not a thing it is an act, which requires an actor as precedent...in other words people

 

regardless the whole thing is beyond idiotic and explains why Christians are so hateful and unloving of others

[Deidre]

Gods a big Bond fan. It's based on a screenplay for a Bond Movie: Live and Kill and Let Die and Live Again. Title may be revised before production.

haha you always make me laugh

[amateur]

 

In the same vein, when I was a teenager a group of us sat around one night talking about religion.  We had all been taught (to varying degrees) that the purpose of life, and especially in heaven, was to worship and praise god.

 

One of the teenagers pointed out, "If god just wants praise, why didn't he create praise instead of people?"

 

We couldn't work our way out of that one.

well semantically, praise is not a thing it is an act, which requires an actor as precedent...in other words people

 

regardless the whole thing is beyond idiotic and explains why Christians are so hateful and unloving of others

 

We did talk about that.  Someone pointed out that issue (people/praise), and the original teenager said, "God is omnipotent so if he wanted to just create praise he could have.  God can do whatever he wants whether we can understand how or not.  So if he just wanted praise, he could have just created praise."

 

It did ultimately end the discussion.  It's no stupider an idea because the teenager was 17 and still in high school, than if an apologist is supposedly an educated 50 year old.

 

And yes, it is all beyond idiotic and definitely explains a lot about xians when they have to defend insanity.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

In the same vein, when I was a teenager a group of us sat around one night talking about religion.  We had all been taught (to varying degrees) that the purpose of life, and especially in heaven, was to worship and praise god.

 

One of the teenagers pointed out, "If god just wants praise, why didn't he create praise instead of people?"

 

We couldn't work our way out of that one.

well semantically, praise is not a thing it is an act, which requires an actor as precedent...in other words people

 

regardless the whole thing is beyond idiotic and explains why Christians are so hateful and unloving of others

 

We did talk about that.  Someone pointed out that issue (people/praise), and the original teenager said, "God is omnipotent so if he wanted to just create praise he could have.  God can do whatever he wants whether we can understand how or not.  So if he just wanted praise, he could have just created praise."

 

It did ultimately end the discussion.  It's no stupider an idea because the teenager was 17 and still in high school, than if an apologist is supposedly an educated 50 year old.

 

And yes, it is all beyond idiotic and definitely explains a lot about xians when they have to defend insanity.

 

If god truly is omnipotent, why would he need praise?  Would his own omnipotence not be enough to satisfy him?  And could he not use his omnipotence to remove his need for praise so that his gi-normous ego wouldn't constantly demand the smiting of nations that did not offer him praise?  I am a mere mortal; but, when I do a good job at something, I don't need to be told I did a good job.  My work speaks for itself and I am satisfied with being able to take pride in it.